


meet the coven

by TheWrongKindOfPC



Series: slightly less magical older-sibling-figures in like [4]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, Meet the Family, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6401713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWrongKindOfPC/pseuds/TheWrongKindOfPC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Hand, kid” Jimi says, tone patient. “On the house.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Go easy on him, Ma,” Orla tells her, grinning, hoping to provoke a crack in Declan’s smile. It works, he huffs at her, glares, and thrusts his left hand in Jimi’s direction.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Leftie, or just contrary?” Jimi asks him. “No, don’t bother, I see.”</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	meet the coven

“And someone needs to go down to the store for charcoal and something for it to char if we’re going to have a moon-night tomorrow,” Calla says over breakfast, eyes half-closed, face half-obscured by a bowl-shaped coffee mug. 

Maura casts a significant look in Blue’s direction, and Blue cast her hands, one still clutching her yogurt-spoon, up. “Not me, I’ve got work till six, I’ll barely make dinner.”

“Well, I have a reading,” Maura says, and she probably doesn’t mean for her tone to sound quite as exactly like her daughter’s.

“Oh, don't worry, I’ve got it covered,” Orla breaks in, airy.

“Do you mean _Declan’s_ got it covered?” Blue asks, shit-eating grin implied, even if it’s not visible around the heaping yogurt spoon she shoves into her mouth.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Cerulean,” Orla says as mysteriously as she can manage while reaching around her mother’s sleepy body for the sugar bowl.

“Is that a yes, or a no?” Blue soldiers on like she thinks Orla has every bowed to pressure in her life, and no, getting thrown out of prom with Davie Collins doesn’t count, that had been _completely mutual_ , thank you Blue Sargent’s insinuating eyebrows with the long memories.

“It’s a surprise,” Orla tells her, eyes wide.

“Orla,” Maura says, “Is this something I need to be thinking about in terms of our guest list?”

Maura’s unspoken question is all about whether she needs to uninvite her pet assassin, which is nice enough, Orla guesses, but this insistence that only the most magical member of any given family gets to actually know what’s going on in the world that Blue’s raven boys seem so set on seems incredibly boring to Orla, so she tells her aunt, “Don’t even worry about it,” and lets her take that however she wants. Then she kidnaps her mother’s barely-touched coffee to head upstairs and start putting on her face before she has to go out and face the day.

…

Walking up from Declan’s car and into the yard, it’s a moment that happens fast enough that Orla thinks she must have blinked and missed something important, Declan is standing in front of her. “Get out of here, Orla,” he says, not looking back at her. “This guy is dangerous.”

The only guy Orla can see is Mr. Gray, though. “I guess any good hit-man is at least a little dangerous,” Orla allows, pushing past Declan to hand the only hit-man on hand her grocery bags.

Declan’s fists are up, and his hands are shaking. “Calm down,” Orla suggests. “You know your snake-brother did something bizarre to the guy who called the hit already, anyway.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Declan sighs feelingly, and Orla doesn’t need to be a psychic to know he didn’t know that at all. 

The thought is almost enough to make her feel sorry for him, so she closes her hand around his unsteady fist and tells him, “You won’t be needing this.” She puts her certainty into the pronouncement, too, willing it to be true. Orla likes a good fight as much as the next girl, but the guy she brought with her tonight would almost certainly lose, if it came down to it, and that would just be embarrassing.

“What if I can’t be here with him?” Declan asks her, catching her eyes on his and looking at her like she knows anything.

“Then you’ll leave,” she tells him, twining their fingers together and aggressively ignoring Blue’s smirk. “But you’re not going to get yourself killed tonight, not when I invited you. That’s just rude.”

“I wouldn’t kill him,” The Gray Man says. “I’m not on the job.” Orla isn’t sure if it’s pushy of him to be talking now or restrained for not saying anything sooner, but she figures ‘mildly huffy’ is always a safe bet in terms of attitude.

“No fun if money’s not on the table?” she asks, mock understanding. “I know how that goes.” She’s not sure how it happened, but now she’s the one standing in between Mr. Gray and Declan, like anything at all is going to happen here, like she’d be any use if it did, like she’d even want to try.

“Dean,” Maura calls, “Come help me set up the grill!”

…

“Cross my palm with silver and hear your future true,” Jimi drawls, all exaggerated false accent and hooded eyes, and Declan looks as startled as if he hasn’t spent large chunks of the past few months in Orla’s company.

Orla rolls her eyes. “ _Mom_ ,” She whines, and knows she’s whining. “Declan doesn’t even want to know.”

Declan darts his eyes at her like he thinks there’s a right and a wrong response to this, and he’s not sure which is which. Orla isn't sure, either.

“I wouldn't mind,” he says, smile charming enough to make Orla think she doesn’t really know him, is never going to know him. “Haven’t got any silver, though.”

“You always did like the obvious, literal ones,” Jimi says, slanting a look in Orla’s direction that doesn’t say anything positive or negative, that’s just shot through with recognition. Orla thinks she might not have turned out so much like her mother if there had ever seemed to be anyone else to be.

“Hand, kid” Jimi says, tone patient. “On the house.”

“Go easy on him, Ma,” Orla tells her, grinning, hoping to provoke a crack in Declan’s smile. It works, he huffs at her, glares, and thrusts his left hand in Jimi’s direction.

“Leftie, or just contrary?” Jimi asks him. “No, don’t bother, I see.”

This time, the impatience in Declan’s eyes shoots towards Jimi, but he keeps a better leash on it, it’s almost impossible to detect. Orla takes the difference for the compliment it is, something warm rippling through her gut.

“No sight needed to know you’ve got a bright future,” Jimi says. “Someone’s coming back you thought you’d never see again, but you’ll need to fight a little—” Declan’s face is going white, and Orla wonders what he thought this was going to be. He jerks his hand back, and Jimi stops.

“This is a terrible idea,” Blue says, like anyone asked her.

“Are we done?” Declan asks, like he wasn’t the one acting like he’d been burned just seconds before.

“Unless you have any more questions,” Jimi answers, voice unreadable.

“I have a question,” Blue asks. “Is that senator of yours still acting like ‘conservation’ is a dirty word?”

Declan jerks his head around like it’s a question that’s coming out of nowhere—though, Orla guesses, he’s unfamiliar enough with her baby cousin that maybe it is. “Buzz off, Turquoise,” Orla tells her.


End file.
